A typical data storage system stores and retrieves data for one or more external host devices. Such a data storage system typically includes processing circuitry and a set of disk drives. In general, the processing circuitry performs load and store operations on the set of disk drives on behalf of the host devices.
In certain data storage systems, the disk drives of the data storage system are distributed among one or more separate disk drive enclosures and processing circuitry serves as a front-end to the disk drive enclosures. The processing circuitry presents the disk drive enclosures to the host device as a single, logical storage location and allows the host device to access the disk drives such that the individual disk drives and disk drive enclosures are transparent to the host device.
In the aforementioned data storage system, the processing circuitry and the disk drive enclosures are typically interconnected in a serial manner using a number of cables to provide the front end processing circuitry with access to any of the individual disk drives of the disk drive enclosures. For example, in the case where the data storage system includes multiple disk drive enclosures, a first cable electrically couples the processing circuitry to a first enclosure, a second cable electrically couples the first enclosure to a second enclosure, a third cable electrically couples the second enclosure to a third enclosure, and so on until each of the disk drive enclosures in the data storage system are serially coupled to the processing circuitry.